Young children, particularly pre-schoolers love surprises! They also love to mush and smush about with squeezeable, formable material such as "Playdoh" (a registered trademark of Playdoh, Inc.), clay or the like. Many parents want their child's play activity to include educational elements. Therefore, there have been many toy devices using letters and forms to help teach children the alphabet, words, and the like.
The present toy device contemplates the use of moldable material by young children in a way that offers a surprise element and also an educational aspect.
The prior art has offered a wide variety of molds for allowing children to form moldable material into a variety of three-dimensional shapes and objects. These devices are relatively simple and straight forward but tend to provide more limited attention holding capabilities. Similarly, strongly educational devices where the child identifies letters or numbers or shapes may fail to hold the small child's attention after a short period of time. They also generally require the involvement of parents or other adults or older children to facilitate the learning activity. Examples of these are books that feature the letters of the alphabet or words or pictures or stories associated with such letters. Another example is a device that has pieces shaped like numbers or letters and matching receptacles for receiving such pieces.
None of these prior art devices combine an educational element with an element of surprise, in connection with the use of squeezeable, moldable material.